BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 9. The exchange of foreign currencies in Iran under the NIMA exchange rate (the exchange rate created for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks) increased by 100 percent, from the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2022) to May 8, compared to the same period last Iranian year, Trend reports citing the Central Bank of Iran’s website.
When the NIMA (Unified System of Foreign Currency Exchanges) exchange rate was created in Iran (2018), it was intended for exporters to sell a portion of their earnings from exports to the country's banks.
Later it was decided to use this exchange rate for the import of some products. So, for the import of certain products that Iran needs, except for a number of essential products such as wheat, barley, etc., the foreign currencies are sold to importers under the NIMA rate.
According to the report, in total, $4 billion worth of various foreign currencies were exchanged under the NIMA exchange rate. During the reporting period, the exporters sold more than $332 million worth of various foreign currencies to Iranian banks under the NIMA rate.
In order to facilitate the provision of foreign currency in the country, the NIMA exchange rate was created. Thus, importers and exporters buy/sell foreign currency under the NIMA rate according to their needs.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has created a NIMA system in 2018 for exporters to sell a portion of their export earnings to banks to eliminate the shortage of foreign currency in the country for various reasons (sanctions, economic situation, etc.). In this system, exporters who earned more than 1 million euros from export a year must sell a portion of their export earnings to banks at the NIMA rate. Later, banks started to sell foreign currency to importers for the import of several products at this rate.
The Central Bank of Iran has not imposed rules on exporters that earned from export less than 1 million euros a year. Those with total exports of one to three million euros per year are required to offer 50 percent of their received foreign exchange from the government through the NIMA system.
The exporters with annual exports of three to 10 million euros are obliged to offer 70 percent. Those with exports of above 10 million euros per year must offer 90 percent of the received foreign exchange at NIMA.
NIMA is a system intended for the sale of a certain percentage of the foreign currency gained from export. The price of 1 euro in this system is 263,207 rials, and the price of $1 is 249,256 rials.
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